


Staring Up

by Trixy_BuenaSuerte



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: 17000 Words of Pure Angst, All Angst No Fluff, And none of them are good, Angst, Angst and Feels, Author Can't Tag, Canon Compliant, Character Study, For Mjolnir at least, For the first movie, Get ready for the feels, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, I have no idea what this is but...I wrote it so please read?, Kinda?, Loki (Marvel) Angst, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel)-centric, Loki has feelings, Loki is in love, Loki is misunderstood, Loki is my spirit animal, M/M, Mythology Origins, No Fluff, Not Beta Read, Oblivious Thor (Marvel), Pining, Pining Loki (Marvel), Pre-Thor: The Dark World, This fic has two names, Thor (2011) - Freeform, Thor doesn't know, We Die Like Asgardians, because i'm an idiot, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29481942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixy_BuenaSuerte/pseuds/Trixy_BuenaSuerte
Summary: It feels like he’s spent all his life staring up.Up at his mother’s kind eyes and sweet smile as she sweeps him up in her arms and twirls across the room, holding him against her chest as he squeals in delight. Up at his father’s strong gaze, heavy with expectation as he strains under the weight of the first and last sword he will ever wield and then clouded in disappointment when he chooses books over battle. Up at his older brother as he fights and drinks and lives andbreathes.Alternatively Known As:The Road to Hell (Is Paved withGoodIntentions)Character Study of Loki turned into...this. 100% angst.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 25





	Staring Up

**Author's Note:**

> I have been writing this for close to a year now, if not a full year, and I'm gonna be very real with all of you...I have no idea what _it_ is. But I've put my blood, sweat, and tears into it so here it is. I hope you guys like it!

### The Road to Hell (Is Paved with ~~Good~~ Intentions)

It feels like he’s spent all his life staring up.

Up at his mother’s kind eyes and sweet smile as she sweeps him up in her arms and twirls across the room, holding him against her chest as he squeals in delight. Up at his father’s strong gaze, heavy with expectation as he strains under the weight of the first and last sword he will ever wield and then clouded in disappointment when he chooses books over battle. Up at his older brother as he fights and drinks and lives and _breathes._ As his brother takes to the sword like a fish to water and, later, wields Mjolnir like the hammer is more an extension of himself than just another weapon.

_That it was a gift from Loki himself is a whole other matter._

So, he spends all his time looking up. At his mother's kindness. His father’s expectations. His older brother’s _everything_ even long after his height has peaked, and he stands taller than all except his older brother. Yet he still looks up at them of all. Up at his mother’s caring words as she runs her hand through his hair, up at his father’s disappointment as he struggles to be everything his father wants him to be, and up at his older brother’s accomplishments in the face of battle and fear and war. At his _greatness._

_The future king of Asgard._

**_Thor_**.

In all his shining, golden glory as he leads their men to battle and brings them back victorious time and again. As he fights with the speed and skill of someone born to live every day out on the frontlines, battling for glory. And, as he stares up at Thor, he thinks he wouldn’t mind doing this for the rest of his life.

Of course, that’s when everything goes wrong.

The problem with always staring up is you don’t see where you stand. You don’t realize how far the drop is. Not until you’re already slipping off the edge with no one to catch you. You also don’t see the darkness that seeps into your heart, the bitterness the poisons your thoughts.

Not until the days turn long, the nights turn cold, and the disappointment in your father’s gaze only turns heavier. Not until you lash out, cold and childish and having far more consequences than you’d imagine. Not until everything comes crashing down around you too quickly and too fast to fix.

_Not until the world comes crashing down around you and you can’t stop it._

Even as he stands in front of his father, watching as his brother’s _everything_ is stripped from him piece by agonizing piece, he doesn’t know where it all went wrong. He doesn’t know when the blackness poisoned him enough to fill him with some sort of hope as Thor is thrown from their world. Stripped of both his nobility and powers.

It’s only when his Father throws Mjolnir after him that any hope that has bloomed dies a cruel, agonizing death.

_Even with Thor gone, he is not worthy enough in his father’s eyes._

His father doesn’t even spare him more than a glance when he turns away, cape flaring out around him in all his angry glory, and he doesn’t follow after him. He just watches, heart racing, bitterness stinging as Thor, the golden child, _the Future King of Asgard,_ is cast out of their world in a glorious display of lights and rumbling magic…all because of him.

 _‘It was just supposed to be a prank,’_ he tries to soothe himself as he searches out Lady Sif and The Warriors Three. A little something to mar his brother’s big day. To ease some of the bitterness in his heart as he stares up at all the greatness he will never amount to. One little trick that went horribly wrong.

The city is quiet, uncertain, and afraid. Their greatest protector is gone. Their Golden Prince lost, their future king undecided, and all that is left is the Second Born Prince, the Sorcerer, the trickster, the silver-tongued mage better suited for his books than war.

There’s no question of it in his mind. If anyone were ever to discover his misdeeds, he’ll be cast out right alongside Thor. If not even the digressions of his brother—the Golden child, the favorite—could be forgiven, loved by any and all as he is, why would his _much_ less favored brother be spared? Especially when he’s the direct reason for his brother’s banishment in the first place.

_Why did he ever think this was a good idea?_

So much has gone so wrong. Thor’s banishment isn’t the only issue to deal with. Now there’s a war at their doorstep and no Golden Prince to win it for them. All eyes are on Odin now, wondering how The King is going to clean up this mess.

That Loki has as much to do with this as Thor did can never be found out. Not if he wants to stay here, in his home, in his world. It’s only by some small miracle that Heimdall hasn’t realized that Loki knows how to hide from him.

But once he does, it won’t take much to connect Loki to the Frost Giants that snuck in unnoticed. And, yet that isn’t his only issue. Far from it, in fact.

There’s another matter that hangs just as heavily in his mind. As Volstagg’s blistering burnt skin is healed, his gaze is locked on his own arm, lingering over the taut muscles and smooth skin. Searching for any sign of damage.

_How isn’t he injured?_

His bracer is gone, frozen and cracked under the huge grip of a Frost Giant nearly twice his size and yet his skin remains unharmed. There's no frostbite, no pain, no lingering blue skin, only the same, unblemished, ivory skin as always. He doesn’t know how it’s possible, can only think of the reasons it _shouldn’t_ be.

He _shouldn’t_ be unaffected by the Frost Giant’s freezing touch.

Yet he is and the Frost Giant had been just as surprised about it as him.

“How did the guard even know?”

Volstagg's questions are equal parts annoyed and confused. The rest of the room is as well. Fandral, Hogun, and even Lady Sif. They’re angry, hurt, _lost_ as they all struggle to come to terms with Thor’s banishment. As surprising as it is unexpected, they search for answers amongst themselves.

“I told him,” Loki confesses, finally lifting his eyes from his arm to look over at them. “I told him to go to Odin after we left. He should be flogged for taking so long,” he adds in as an afterthought, annoyed that Thor hadn't been stopped in his mad rampage sooner. "We should never have reached Jotunheim.”

“You told the guards?” Volstagg almost yells, voice high with disbelief as Loki admits to something too close to betrayal to be comforting. That it saved their lives is not important, not when their friend has been tossed out of their world, banished for it.

“I saved our lives,” he tells them anyway. If only to hear the words. To remind himself that, yes, Thor is gone thanks to him but at least Lady Sif and The Warriors Three still live. “And Thor’s. I had no idea that Father would banish him for what he did.”

And he really _hadn’t._

Not when Thor is, well _Thor_.

The Golden Prince loved and cherished and favored and **_the future king of Asgard._** Except, he isn't. Not anymore. Not since Loki single-handedly got him banished, stripped of his powers, and never allowed to return. But he doesn’t tell them any of that.

“Loki,” Lady Sif calls, desperate hope in her words and on her face as she jumps to her feet. If this situation wasn’t about Thor, _about his brother,_ he would almost be eager to crush her hopes. As it is, he only feels dread in the face of all her hope. “You must go to the Allfather and convince him to change his mind.”

“And if I do, then what?" he asks because he has to. Always the reasonable one and too used to the years of playing devil’s advocate in the face of all of Thor’s rashness, he’s analyzing all angles of this situation even if he doesn’t want to. “I love Thor more dearly than any of you.”

And it’s true.

Despite the bitterness in his heart, the poison in his thoughts, he loves Thor with every throbbing beat of his heart. His contentment to spend the rest of his life staring up has nothing to do with basking in his Mother’s love or attempting to finally achieve all of his Father’s expectations.

It has and always will be Thor.

His brother.

_His everything._

He has never loved anyone and will never love anyone as much as he does Thor. He knows this, has known it for years. He lives and breathes for Thor. For his smiles and his laughter, for the sight of crystal blue eyes filling with fondness as they fall on him.

Thor means the world to him, always has.

If there is any good left in him, it will only ever be the love he can feel for his brother. The very same love that sits heavy in his chest, suffocating almost as it twists and throbs and _aches_ at his next words. But he says them anyway because, the thing about love is, when you love someone you love them exactly as they are.

You don’t look at their faults and ignore them.

You don’t try to brush them under the rug and make them disappear. You take them as they are, imperfections and all, and you love them _for_ it. You love their imperfections as much as you love all the good in them because it makes them _who they are_.

“But you know what he is.”

The words are a knife to his own heart, bitter and angry that he even has to say them out loud. That he has to give voice to the poisonous thoughts in his mind that he has never really entertained before. For all his bitterness, he has never turned it towards Thor. Has never allowed those words to poison all the _good_ he feels for his brother.

Doing so now feels like more of a betrayal than anything else he has already done.

“He’s arrogant. He’s reckless,” he says, angry and frustrated as he finally lets the poison spread. Lets it fill his heart and taint every inch of his brother. Marring all the good, but not the love.

No.

Flawed or not, he will _always_ love his brother.

“He’s dangerous.”

Too many years in battle have made his brother quick to anger, belligerent, and oh so violent. Too many victories have made him arrogant, rash, and reckless. Gone is the caring Golden Prince of their youth. Lost to years spent in battles only to return as something too close to a tyrant to be comfortable, but Loki will never stop staring up at Thor.

Because, even with his faults, Thor will always be his _everything_.

“You saw how he was today,” he tells the room, running his gaze over The Warriors Three to find them all staring at him in various stages of disbelief and _begging_. Begging them to see, to understand that even for all love he holds for Thor, he can never ignore his flaws. “Is that what Asgard needs from its king?”

It doesn’t.

Ever the voice of reason, ever the rational one, he knows this better than any of them. Better than he wishes he did because not even his love for his brother is enough for him to say yes. No matter how much Thor means to him, Loki can’t look the other way. Can’t ignore the violent, reckless, _thing_ his brother has become. No matter how much it hurts, he can’t pretend that Thor _isn’t_ arrogant.

_Dangerous._

Even before Thor could be fully crowned King, he has already brought war to Asgard.

While Loki had been the one to incite his anger, marring his coronation, and effectively ruining it all together, Thor had been the one to call for war. _Thor_ had been the once to lead them to Jotunheim. To lead the attack that nearly cost them their lives.

That he had goaded Thor every step of the way is something Loki wishes he could forget. Something he wishes he had never done, not when _this_ was the outcome. Goading and annoying Thor is one thing, something he does often if he’s being honest.

_Causing mischief comes to him as easily as breathing._

And playing tricks on his giant oaf of a brother is something he has done since childhood. But causing Thor to be banished is a whole other thing completely. Something he’s never entertained as being possible. Not when Thor is, well, _Thor_. His father’s most favored son and the Realm’s most favored prince. Their greatest defender and warrior and, and…just _Thor._

Because to Loki, Thor is _everything_.

_And look what Loki has done to him._

He leaves the room then, but not before he can see the disbelief on Lady Sif's face turn into something like betrayal. The very same betrayal he can see on all their faces and feel churning in his heart. Twisting and throbbing when he only just manages to catch the tail end of her next words.

“…He’s always been jealous of Thor.”

 _‘No,’_ he wants to tell her, wants to beg her to understand. Wants to deny that he’s let any of the bitterness in his heart mar his feelings for Thor. Wants to shout that, trickery aside, he would _never_ purposely hurt Thor. That even though he spends all his time looking up at Thor, it has never been in jealousy.

_Never._

It has always been in peace. Lounging in his warmth, in his protection. Looking up at Thor has never brought envy or anger or any of the things they are imagining due to his lack of help. Looking up at Thor has only ever brought him happiness and warmth and love. It has sheltered him from his father’s disappointment, protected him from vicious whispers, and warmed him on those nights when being _‘The Second Prince’—_ always second best and never good enough—had gotten to be just a tad bit too much.

Because, as much as Thor had been the Protector of Asgard, Thor had been Loki’s protector too.

_His big brother._

Who has always sheltered him from vicious stares and even crueler words. Lady Sif isn't the first to question his loyalty to Thor. There have been others. Many of them who are convinced he wants nothing more than to steal the throne from Thor. Even more of them are probably convinced he would see Thor dead before allowing him to take the throne.

Thor had protected him from it all, kept the cruel words and gossipers away with badly concealed threats. Time and time again and without fail because Thor _knows_. Better than anyone, better than even his father and his mother, that Loki _would never_. Would rather kill himself first before allowing himself to so much as injure Thor. Who has always been so kind to Loki even on his worst days.

And look at how Loki has repaid his kindness.

Anger and frustration run rampant, clashing with the confusion and fear, as he makes his way through the castle halls. There’s too much going on, both in Asgard and his own mind. Too much to think about. Questions of the blue skin mix and clash with thoughts of Thor. With the betrayal he has singlehandedly deliver to Thor and doesn’t know how to fix. 

Eyes going to his hand again, he figures he can at least focus on one of those first.

He still doesn’t know what it means, his unmarred skin. Even as he makes his way to The Room of Treasures, he’s not sure what he’s hoping for. So even as he approaches the Casket of Ancient Winters, he has no idea what he’s really trying to prove, what answers he’s looking for. All he knows is that the box might hold some solutions. As a Jotunheim Relic, it might hold some key to the riddle of just what happened to him.

There’s no hiding the way his hands shake when he reaches for the box. Not when his whole body is trembling, his eyes red, watery, both from strain and lack of sleep and something that feels a lot like despair as he wraps long, thin fingers around the Casket.

For three glorious seconds, nothing happens. The Casket is nothing more than a heavyweight in his hands, cold as ice and just as still. The relief that fills him then is short-lived. Gone too quick to really feel as blue begins to creep.

It starts slowly, at his fingers, where skin meets the cold steel of the Casket. But it doesn’t take long to spread, blue creeping faster and faster as it crawls over his hands and up his arms. Even as it slips under his sleeves, he can almost _feel_ the way his skin changes. Growing blue and rough and _cold._

_“Stop!”_

Odin’s voice is loud and commanding, but it is too late. The damage is done. The blue has taken over, stained every inch of his skin until there’s nothing left. Until it has swallowed him whole and left him cold and bitter and _wrong._

“Am I cursed?”

It’s the only answer. The only explanation for the blue, the coldness, the bitterness that swallows his heart and the poison that fills his mind. For the _hate,_ the _pain_ that twists his heart, turning him into something as cruel as the thoughts that circle his mind.

“No.”

The answer is equal parts comforting and regretful. Like this all would have been so much better if it _was_ just a curse. Something that can be broken, _fixed_ , instead of something that can never be changed. As if being cursed would be better than what he currently is.

“What am I?”

_Laufeyson._

That is the word that seals his fate. No other words said, no other explanation or accusation or pitiful excuse can doom him as much as that word. The explanations and excuses are nothing more than a jumbled, unimportant as that word answers all his questions.

_That name._

It is his. Has always been and will always be even as the man before him swears he is still his father. But he isn’t and suddenly it all makes sense. The badly hidden disappointment, the expectations too high and too hard to reach.

_The undying, all-consuming love for his brother._

No.

He isn’t his brother.

It’s with some detached amusement that he realizes his world truly stops spinning with that thought. It stops, freezing as something in him _screams._ Revolts and twist and snarls as everything he has ever thought he was suddenly doesn’t exist.

As he learns that he no longer is and never was Thor’s younger brother.

_Even while Thor still is his everything._

“Why?” his question comes out as something close to a whisper. Yet no less lost and confused and _angry._ “You were knee-deep in Jotun blood, why would you take me?”

“You were an innocent child.”

But that answer isn’t enough. Not when his world has stopped spinning and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He doesn’t know how to make it spin again. Doesn’t even know where to begin looking to even attempt fixing it.

“No, you took me for a purpose, what was it?”

He is finally well and truly lost.

When Odin says nothing, stern gaze just watching him, something in him breaks. Splintering and shattering under the weight of a thousand disappointed gazes.

“Tell me!”

He has never yelled at Odin before. Not even as a child knee deep in tantrums or as a young teenager in the midst of yet another fit. Ever the cool-head, rational one, he has never yelled at his King before but there is no taking it back now as his voice echoes around the room. There is also no stopping the tears that build in his eyes, stinging and heavy.

“I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day,” Odin finally says, but it isn’t enough. It doesn’t start his world spinning again. The world continues to stay frozen and the screaming doesn’t stop. “Bring about an alliance, bring about permanent peace. Through you.”

Only it’s not screaming. It’s the screeching withering pain of something in him dying a cruel, painful death. That it’s his heart goes without saying and Odin’s words only spear him deeper. Only cut him more, as everything that ever be considered good in him dies just a little bit more.

“What?”

His confusion is plain to see and oh so heartbreaking that the tear that finally slips free brings no relief.

“But those plans no longer matter.”

Of course, they don’t. They never really did. Not without Thor here at his side to wash away all the pain. To keep all the poison from tainting him as the pain swallows him whole. As the world stops spinning, freezing in this new cruel reality, everything Loki ever was dies a horrible, painful death.

“So, I am no more than another stolen relic,” he breathes out, the shock and anger pushing the words out even though everything in him wants to retreat. To hide away in the face of everything he never was. As all his truths are laid bare and suddenly it all makes sense in this horrible and cruel reality. “Locked up here until you might have use of me.”

The bitterness.

The poison.

_The undying, all-consuming love for his brother._

Because, suddenly, it doesn’t quite mean what it always has and he’s starting to realize it never really did. As his world continues to fall apart around him, suddenly everything takes on a whole new light. Shifting and melting into different, yet clearer pictures of feelings that run deeper than he’s ever allowed himself to look at.

And yet, it’s all the same. Because it’s not his love for Thor that changes, but his understanding of it. His love for Thor has and will always be there, buried deep in his heart, throbbing, and pulsing like it has a beat of its own. Like it’s a living, breathing thing that warms him on the coldest nights and soothes his aches and pains. But, suddenly, it’s not as innocent as he thought.

As his understanding shifts, the picture clears and, suddenly, it’s not his brother he loves.

It’s _Thor._

The man. The prince. The Golden Warrior who has fought and won countless battles for the sake of his Kingdom. Who smiles those wide goofy smiles and looks at him with fondness in his gaze even when Loki has trapped him in another one of his pranks. Who has fought alongside him time and time again, sheltering and protecting him both from the swing of a blade and the sting of cruel words sent his way.

Who has stood by his side both in triumph, won by the skin of their teeth, and bitter defeat rewarded with heavily disappointed gazes. Who has never blamed him, has never shunned him, has never loved him any less for his preference of books and magic and mischief rather than that of the sword.

Who is no longer his _brother_ but instead a man, strong and handsome, and still _everything_ to Loki.

The very same man who has saved his life countless times. Has held him in arms strong enough to snap bones, in hugs tight enough to make his ribs creak, and warm enough to chase away the chill of even the coldest night. Who has only ever loved Loki like he _deserves_ it, like he isn’t some treacherous Second Born prince waiting and eager to snatch the throne from him like so many whispers.

That Loki has never really cared for the throne to Asgard is another thing entirely.

Especially when what Loki yearns for isn't the throne, but the figure set to rest upon it. For Thor's goofy smiles and fond gazes and his kindness. For Thor's attention and care and the knowledge that, in Thor's heart, he is second to none.

If Loki is jealous of anything, it is Thor’s love for Asgard.

Of the beautiful realm Thor risks his life to defend time and again. Every call for Asgard’s defense, Thor has answered willingly, eagerly, _faithfully_. There is nothing in this world Thor has loved more than he has loved his Kingdom. And it burns Loki with something that feels a lot like envy to know it. To realize that even in Thor’s heart he will always be second best.

_Maybe that’s why he’s so bitter._

Why he’s so obsessed with pranking Thor. When every prank, every trick is only ever to turn Thor’s gaze his way. To force Thor to give him the attention he so desperately craves. The one he constantly has to fight to get. Especially as all of Thor’s attention is so devoted to the Kingdom he’s set to inherit.

Even if it’s in anger, Loki will take Thor’s attention in whatever way he can get it.

“Why do you twist my words?”

He almost ignores Odin’s question. Almost. He is still as lost as before but now twice as confused as he realizes he cannot keep loving Thor as he always has. That sweet and innocent love, that content-ness to bask in the warmth Thor’s gaze is shifting, changing, and melting away to reveal something he doesn’t want to see. Can’t bear to see it.

_Not when it feels so right._

“You could have told me what I was from the beginning,” he tells Odin, desperately wishing he had. If only to avoid the panic he can feel building. Surely this existential panic would never have come if he had only been told what he was earlier, before his feelings for Thor could turn into _this._ “Why didn’t you?”

Into undying, all-consuming love for _Thor._

“You’re my son,” Odin says in that frustrating regretful tone of his and Loki wants to scream. To give voice to all the pain as his heart keeps trying to tear itself in two. “I wanted only to protect you from the truth.”

So, finally, he does. He gives in to the screaming of his heart and lets it rush forward. Gives voice to the pain in the only way he can. He rants, stumbling over the words that rushed to get out. Fueled by his anger and confusion, his voice rises. Building until he’s screaming over Odin’s soft refusals. Towering over him as Odin falls.

For a few confusing moments, Loki thinks he's killed him, heart failing from the strain of Loki yelling at him. As Odin falls, eyes slipping shut, Loki stops yelling, worried up until he sees Odin's chest rise and fall, sleep taking him. He reaches for Odin then, still so lost and confused that it takes him a while to call for help.

Thought not necessarily because he doesn’t want to.

When the guards come rushing in, they find him crouched over Odin, Loki's hand resting on his. He moves away easily though. Allows them to take Odin away with no fuss. Almost in a daze, he follows after them, watching as the healers gather.

“Loki.”

His mother’s call is soft, filled with sorrow, both for Odin and Thor when she appears in the Healing Rooms. She’s breathless when she walks into the room, worried and rushing as she comes towards him with open arms to allow him to melt into her embrace. And he does, gratefully, the pain and screaming muffling some as her arms wrap him, comforting and soothing, and yet not enough.

Despite the warmth of her embrace, everything is still so wrong.

“He told me,” he whispers against her hair, ignoring the way she tenses in his arms. “He told me what I am.”

“Loki,” she starts, stopping to pull out of his arms and take his face in her hands. They’re small against his cheeks and oh so warm. Comforting and everything he needs in the wrong set of hands. Especially when the hands he’s wishing for are currently in a completely different world, no doubt as lost and confused as he feels.

“My Prince,” someone calls before she can speak again. The door to the Healing Rooms has been cracked open by a guard Loki doesn’t recognize. One who stands impassively even as he interrupts their moment. “The council has called for you.”

“Go,” she urges him when it looks like he might tell the guard to get lost. Her words are soft, soothing as always even as she tells him to leave. “We will discuss this later.”

The second he is out of her reach, everything comes back. The pain, the confusion. The screaming of his heart, as he follows warily after the guard. That the Council has called for him is no surprise. With Odin lost to Odinsleep, they will need a new king to lead.

Especially with Jotunheim out for blood.

It’s just Loki’s luck that Odinsleep would take Odin now, when Thor is gone, his world is in shambles, and there is war looming on the horizon. With the way this truly horrible day is going, he’s expecting the Council to demand Thor be brought back to take control of Asgard.

He was the heir to the throne, after all.

And, with Odin taken before he could appoint a new heir, reinstating Thor is the only option now. Isn’t it? Loki is no warrior, has no greatness in battle, or victories to boast about. He can’t lead their army into battle, can’t fight side by side with their soldiers.

He can do nothing more but wait on the sidelines for Thor to bring back their men, happy and victorious.

“My Prince,” someone greets when the guards throw open the door to the council chambers. Despite the pain in his heart and the confusion in his mind, he enters with his head held high. Donning a mask he knows all too well, one of indifference and stone, he strides into the room ready and waiting to be commanded to bring Thor back.

He’s almost eager for it.

Yearning for it if only to see the man again. To beg him to stop the poison in his head and the screaming in his heart the way only he can. The way Thor always has when Loki’s head has turned too treacherous, the poison turning inward and clouding his mind with doubt of his own self-worth.

Biting and crueler than even the whispers ever could.

Thor had always found him then, hiding away and allowing the poison to tear him down. Fueling the bitterness in his heart as, suddenly, all the reasons why he would always be second best bury themselves deep in his heart. Their sharp claws tearing it apart even though he tries to recall why it might not be true.

“Loki Odinson, second son of the Allfather,” someone else says as he approaches them. It’s a woman this time, with a deep, soothing voice. They’re seated at a table, one the circles half the room in a crescent and is set up on a dais that leaves them towering over him. The seat in the middle, the tallest of them, is empty. “It is by the unanimous decision of this council that we have elected you as King Regent.”

“King Regent?” he asks, gazing up at the weathered faces of Asgardians centuries old. Faces that have seen him as a babe and watched him grow. Faces that _should_ know of his origins. That should have seen Odin bring him to Asgard with the rest of the spoils of war. Faces that look at him like they, surprisingly, don’t _know_.

Like they didn’t watch Odin suddenly appear, victorious from battle and with a stolen babe in his arm. 

If they did, they wouldn’t even have waited for him.

Thor would have been here before he’s so much as stepped into the room. Already towering over him from his seat on the throne and demanding his immediate banishment because he would know. It wouldn’t take much to connect the dots. It really, really wouldn’t. Not when Laufey has already warned them all that there is a traitor in the House of Odin.

And sneaking three Jotunheim into Asgard is an easy feat for a master of magic.

A master like him.

All signs point to him now. If anyone bothers to look closely enough, there will be no denying it. Nor will there be any denying that Loki _hasn’t_ helped to bring Thor back. He hasn’t even gone as far as talking to his mother about it. Too distracted with his own revelations, he hasn’t broached the topic with anyone other than Lady Sif and the Warriors Three.

Really, his complete lack of action is as damning as his abilities.

And if Thor comes home, there will be no hiding. Not with Lady Sif, the smartest of Thor’s companions, already suspecting him. Her words as he had left them have proved as much. It won't take much for her to convince the rest, and then, to damn him in front of all the others until she sees him in chains for his prank gone horribly wrong.

For his pitiful excuse at treason.

“Until the Allfather wakes from his slumber,” the woman begins again from her seat. The others nod and murmur their agreement. But not in eagerness. No, there is nothing eager about this anointment. It’s hushed. Secret and rushed. Quiet enough to be slipped under the rug should Thor ever return. Loki can almost feel the unease in the air. “We would be honored to be under your kingship.”

_Wait._

Kingship aside, Loki wants to ask about Thor. Wants to demand when he will be brought back and returned home safe and sound, but he’s swept away before he can so much as speak. They usher him to the Throne room so quickly he has no idea what's happening until he suddenly finds himself crowned.

The ceremony is small, quiet, and almost completely nonexistent.

Where Thor’s failed coronation had been lively and huge. A celebration with only the greatest to feast on and to dine with. His is rushed and almost a whisper. No crowds are gathered, no dignitaries witness his crowing. Not even his mother is called to attend.

It is only him and the council when the crown is set atop his head and Gungnir—Odin’s spear—is placed in his hands. 

“My King,” the council calls, voices low as they almost whisper the word along with something that sounds a lot like regret to Loki. With their gazes on him, Loki climbs the dais to the wide, golden throne that sits on it and takes his place above them.

It fills him with something bittersweet to watch them kneel at his feet.

“Leave me,” he orders them, his face still that same stone, cold mask. It's his first official order as King. One they follow almost instantly, dispersing like the shameful secret this will all become once Thor comes home.

Once the proper heir to the throne returns, there will be no keeping Thor from claiming his place on it. Not with how much he has wanted it, how much he has fought for it. So, once he finally finds his way home, Loki will have to concede the throne and face his punishment.

Loki will be banished from their world then. He knows it with a bitter certainty the aggravates his screaming heart. In a twisted turn of fate, he is now the king waiting to be disposed of. To be tossed aside once the proper heir returns to cast him out. To throw the imposter out of his kingdom.

And there is nothing Loki can do about it but wait.

 _No_.

There is one thing he can do.

Jotunheim wants revenge. They want war. While Thor had been the one to lead the assault on Jotunheim, it had been Loki who had riled him enough to attack. So, it is only proper that Loki helps correct this mess, right? Maybe if he does a good enough job of it, he can even avoid banishment. 

Thoughts on how to fix the truly disastrous mess are the only thing on his mind when they find him. Though those thoughts are only a convoluted jumble of half thought out schemes and pure insanity. Most won’t work even with the full force of Asgard’s army at his disposal. But the more he thinks, the more one thing becomes clear.

Thor can’t come home.

_Not yet._

“AllFather,” Lady Sif voice reaches him before he even focuses back into the room enough to spot her. She marches into the room, hand already over her heart, fisted in greeting even before she and The Warriors Three spot him on the throne. “We must speak with you urgently.”

“My friends.”

He doesn’t mean for the greeting to come out like it does. Arrogant and giddy with it, but the sight of them rushing across the room sparks something vicious in him. They’d just as willingly throw him to the wolves in order to save their precious Thor, he knows it. So much so that standing above them now fills him with something an awful lot like pride.

Pride like he has never felt before in his life. And power, so much power that they pull up short at the sight of him, stalling in their steps.

“Where’s Odin?”

Fandral is the first to recover, abandoning their greeting as he moves towards the foot of the throne. There’s something like outrage on his face as he does. The others follow after him, fist dropping from their hearts as they go. 

“Father has fallen into the Odinsleep,” Loki says, words strained. He doesn’t have to pretend to grieve over it. For all the poison in his thoughts and the screaming in his heart, there’s worried in there too for the man that pretended to care for him. Though it has less to do with the man himself and more to do with the Mother who has sheltered him with her love. “Mother fears he will never wake again.”

“We would speak with her,” Lady Sif commands as she recovers from her shock to take the lead again. Without Thor at their side, she takes the reins like she was made for it. She truly is a natural-born leader even in the darkest times. Moving faster than the others, she reaches the dais first. The others crowd behind her, letting her stand before Loki to make their demands known.

“She has refused to leave my Father’s bedside. You can bring your urgent matter to me,” Loki tells them even though he already knows what this is all about. It doesn't take much guesswork to figure out what has Lady Sif and The Warriors three so worked up. “Your King.”

There's power in those words when he says them. A challenge too as he rises from his seat to tower over them, Thor's most trusted companions. Deadset on obtaining the only thing he cannot give them. At least not yet, when the threat of his own banishment hangs so close over his head.

Any other day, any other situation, any other time, he wouldn't even have waited for their plead. Thor would have been home before they could even gather the courage to petition their king. And Loki wouldn't even have done it for their sake.

_Not when Thor continues to be his everything._

That Volstagg is the first to kneel in the face of his challenge is as unsurprising as Hogun being the last. Where Lady Sif is and has been open and loud about her distaste for him on occasion, Hogun has made no secret of his quiet dislike of Loki and his sneaky ways.

“My King,” Lady Sif says, the words almost pained as she’s forced to address him with that title. The very one he has no right to. No doubt she’s already convinced herself that this was Loki’s plan all along. To have Thor banished so Loki could steal the throne for his own. “We would ask that you end Thor’s banishment.”

_If only she knew._

“My first command cannot be to undo the Allfather’s last,” Loki tells her disbelief on his face and in his words, so they come out sounding almost fake. Uncaring and incredulous for the fate of the “brother” he claims to hold dear to his heart. And there’s nothing that he can do to not make it sound so false.

Because, for as much as it sounds like an excuse, it’s a valid reason. Doing so would be the ultimate insult. Disregarding Odin's last orders would be akin to treason against their previous king and all he rules. Especially once he rises from the sleep that has plagued him.

And what excuse could Loki give then? When Odin rises to rule over his kingdom only to find a banished prince on his seat. Whether it’s his favored son or not, Loki will be the one held accountable for it. Much more so if Thor has committed some of those incredibly stupid stunts of misplaced heroics that only lead to hardship and pain that he is so well known for.

What if Odin rises to see his beloved kingdom led astray by the very Prince he had singlehandedly banished.

_What excuse could Loki possibly offer for having gone against Odin’s orders?_

“We’re on the brink of war with Jotunheim,” Loki continues, sealing away the regret that comes as he realizes he _can’t_. As much as he wishes, as much as he simply _needs_ to bring Thor home, he very, truly can’t. Not until he has a valid enough reason to present to Odin once he wakes.

So, he seals away the regret. Locks away the pain and loneliness behind his façade. Covers it all up until all that is left is that uncaring, stone mask on his face as he descends the dais to stand before Lady Sif and the Warriors Three.

“Our people need a sense of continuity, in order to feel safe during these difficult times,” he explains, as he moves to them, not sparing the soldiers who guard the throne a glance as he walks past them. Not when he’s so focused on Lady Sif’s face. So, centered in watching it curl in distastes as he seals his fate against her. “All of us must stand together for the good of Asgard.”

She will never trust him again. Will never spare him a word of goodwill or glance that isn’t full of the hatred he can see burning in her eyes. That flame will stay there forever, watching his every move and waiting for the day she can bring him to his knees.

He is only proven right when she goes to rise against him.

“Yes, of course,” Fandral agrees just as easily as he catches Lady Sif before she can pounce on Loki. His words come out smooth, a small, charming smile on his face even as he remains kneeling under Loki’s authority.

“Good,” Loki tells them, completely ignoring Lady Sif’s petulant act of disobedience as he gazes at the rest of The Warriors Three. Thor’s most loyal companions and men Loki would have once considered his own if only because spending time in Thor’s presence meant spending it in theirs too. “Then you will wait for my word.”

It's a promise, unsaid but just as true that he will have a word for it. That he will eventually bring Thor home, someway somehow. But patience is the key here and Lady Sif and The Warriors Three lack it by the boatload, so the promise goes over their head. Misunderstood and disregarded so that they don't even realize it was a promise to begin with.

“If I may,” Volstagg begins, nerves causing him to stutter out his words as Lady Sif continues to stare Loki down with her burning gaze. That Loki is now their King, only makes his nerves rise for fear of when he will tire of Lady Sif’s disrespect and finally do something about it. “Beg the indulgence of your majesty to perhaps reconsider—”

“We’re done.”

His voice rings around the room, echoing back at him with authority it has never had before, as he cuts off Volstagg’s last plead. The hatred in Lady Sif’s eyes slowly spread to the others as they rise at his blatant dismissal of their concerns, disbelief covering every inch of their faces.

Volstagg is the first to leave, followed closely by all but Lady Sif, who hangs back to glare at him a moment longer. There’s a promise in her eyes, one that speaks of danger and revenge and all the ways she will make him pay for what he has done. Even if he is still Thor’s brother in their minds, she will see Loki fall or die trying.

So, with a smile that has nothing to do with kindness, she turns and leaves. Taking her dark promises with her as she follows the others out of the Throne room. Loki is not foolish enough to think this will be the end of it. They will be back, angrier and lusting for his blood.

_Let them._

He has more important matters to attend to. Namely figuring out how to bring Thor back without invoking Odin’s wrath once he wakes. So, he watches them go even while knowing it isn’t in peace. Even while knowing that there's a plan hatching in Lady Sif's mind and there might even be mutiny before his first day of Kingship is even done. 

There’s nothing for it, though. Not now when they have left as obediently as their pride will allow. So instead he just watches them go until they’re out of sight and his only companions are the turmoil in the air they leave behind and the soldiers that stand at his back.

He dismisses them then, as he makes his own way out of the Throne room. The guards only stay long enough to open the door for him as he leaves. After that, they shuffle away, and Loki is left to walk down the halls in blessed peace.

Something he is insanely grateful for even as the quiet only serves to make the screaming in his heart louder, angrier, and more painful for the single reason that he’s alone. Still, he makes his way down the halls with his head held high, golden Gungnir clench tightly in his hand. 

It’s thick and heavy in his hand. Cold too, despite the magic that swirls inside it, alive and pulsing, and that gives him the right to rule over the very kingdom Thor has risked his life for time and again. The one Thor shed blood, sweat, and tears for.

_Only to lose it all to the very person who would see it all burn to the ground._

No.

That’s not true. Even for all the love Loki _doesn’t_ have for the great city of Asgard, he would never see her burn. Not by anyone and much less by his own hands if only because Asgard means so much to Thor.

To the very man he loves more than life itself.

So, he’ll keep her alive and thriving. Nurture and protect her until he can bring Thor back to her because, for as much as Thor loves Asgard, she loves him too. Already her magic calls to him, mourning the loss of her greatest protector as once bright blue skies darken in grief.

Somewhere, thunder cracks, loud and mournful.

“Loki.”

His mother’s voice is a sweet breath of relief when he enters Odin’s room. Before he can even reach Odin’s bedside, Loki finds himself once again swept up in her warm embrace. He melts into her instantly, only pausing long enough to remove his helmet and toss it aside.

It’s only then, wrapped up in his Mother’s embrace, melting in it even as his heart continues to twist and throb and scream, that he realizes there won’t be any salvation for him. As all the good and love and care his mother feels for him seeps into his very bones, he realizes that he has well and truly sealed his fate.

And it won’t be a good ending.

Even if he can keep Thor from returning home, he can’t keep Odin from waking.

“How is he?” he asks as his Mother pulls away to lead him to Odin’s bedside, urging him to take a seat beside it. He lets her push him down, going to sit beside Odin with no protest even as his heart wrenches painfully at the sight of the man who has kept everything from him.

“He is fine, dear,” she coos at him as she takes his face into her hands. She holds him there, crystal blue eyes searching for something in his face. If she finds it, he doesn’t know but, slowly, she lets a hand run through his hair, pushing the black locks away from his face before she lets him go. “He is just sleeping.”

He watches her go, circling around Odin’s bed until she comes to rest on the opposite side from Loki's own. Together they watch Odin sleep, encased in gold and unaware of the mutiny Loki can feel building in the hearts of Lady Sif and The Warriors Three.

“I never get used to seeing him like this,” Loki whispers as he finally lets his gaze fall, lets it roam over Odin’s too still form. As still as if he's been caught in the embrace of death, never to rise again.

“He’s put it off for so long now that I fear…”

His mother’s words are just as soft as his, worried and tinged with the fear of losing someone so dear to her heart. Where he has to search the depths of his heart to muster the necessary concern, she lets hers flow easily.

“How long will it last?” he asks, both curious to know how long he has before he’s tossed off the throne and worried that it might not be long before Odin wakes and learns of his misdeeds. Now that Lady Sif is set in her ways and determined to help him find his end, there will be no keeping his betrayal from Odin.

It won’t be long before everyone learns he was the one to let the Frost Giants into Asgard. All too soon, once Odin wakes and Lady Sif brings her concerns to him, Loki will be banished. Exiled from the beautiful Golden Kingdom and the Golden prince set to inherit it.

His days in Asgard are as numbered as his days on the throne. There is no grace, no saving force who can keep him from the fate that awaits him. Sure, he can keep Thor away, can rush to tie loose ends and make attempts to clean up his mistake before allowing Thor back but nothing will stop Lady Sif from accusing him. 

The hatred in her burns too deep, jilted as she is by his refusal to give in to her commands, for her to keep the treacherous words to herself even if he singlehandedly brought Thor home. Nothing is more dangerous than a woman scorned, and at this moment, Lady Sif might just be his undoing. Sent to bring him down to the very depths of Helheim herself.

And nothing he can do will be able to stop it. Nothing can stop the hammer set to fall on his head should Odin awake, or Thor comes home to find him on the throne. There is nothing that can save him now.

_Not unless…_

“I don’t know,” she answers, her gaze roaming over Odin's face as she takes his hand into hers, grippingly it tightly in her hands. “This time is different. We were unprepared.”

“So why did he lie.”

He doesn’t know why he asks. Not when there are more pressing matters in his mind. Matters like how to put off his inevitable exile, but that question burns in his mind until he can’t keep from asking.

He needs to know if only to make peace with the fact that Odin is a better lair than he knew. For all that Loki is the God of Lies with a tongue of silver, Odin has outdone him with the magnitude of this one lie and the lengths he has gone to keep it.

“He kept the truth from you so that you would never feel different,” his mother says, defending Odin as she implores him to understand. “You are our son, Loki, and we, your family. We mustn’t lose hope that your father will return to us. And your brother.”

She begs even without knowing his heart is too far gone for that. The poison in his thoughts has spread, infecting every corner, and painting all his memories in shades of bitterness. Warping them until all that's left is anger. At being lied to for so long. At being forced to compare against a Golden Prince he could never reach.

“What hope is there for Thor?” he almost spits out, angry in the face of all the lies he’s ever been told. Thor is no more his brother than Lady Sif and the Warriors Three, and yet that has not changed the fact that Thor is still his _everything_.

And that only makes the sting of betrayal burn all the more.

“There’s always a purpose to everything your father does.”

His mother’s words stick with him long after he has left her presence. They bounce around his head, struggling to wade through the poison in his mind to make some sort of sense. As he is, brimming with bitterness that digs into the wounds in his heart, the words don’t mean much to him.

But they are the words of the woman who raised him with kindness in her heart and warmth in her smiles so he can't toss them away like he wants to. Can't push them away and ignore them as he struggles to think of a solution to this mess.

So, finally, he gives in, lets the words melt into something that isn't twinged with hatred and deception as he stops scheming long enough to get the hint. His mother, kind as she is, is not Queen only for her beauty and grace.

Her words hold a deeper meaning. One Loki has been struggling _not_ to understand because it only paints his coming exile that much clear. If, as his mother says, there is still hope for Thor’s return then Odin cast him out for one reason alone.

_Thor’s banishment was never meant to be permanent._

No, no it wasn’t. Thor was always meant to fight his way back to them. To trudge to the trials placed before them and come out a better man. He was meant to live and fight and breathe the air of a man struggling to find his place in his newly exiled existence.

And, as Loki finds himself in the Human world, under the soft gleam of a waning moon and wrapped in his magic to keep him hidden, he can see why Odin chose to banish Thor to Midgard. As he sees Thor, tough, intimidating, _arrogant_ Thor drape a coat over a small, Midgardian woman, he can already see the sordid tale Odin hoped would unwind in this festering, primitive world.

Thor was never sent to Midgard to remain in exile. Despite his arrogance and the treason born from it, Thor was never meant to remain banished. He wasn’t sent to Midgard to waste away as the forgotten prince, but to learn.

On this small, primitive planet, with his hammer lost to him and devoid of the gifts that once made him a prince worthy of inheriting the Golden Throne, he was meant to learn what it means to be a King.

For all the bluster of banishing his wayward son, Odin never meant for him to stay away. Thor would be back as soon as he has learned his lesson in humility and Loki would once again find himself the Second Prince, tossed aside and forgotten.

Even more so now, he realizes as Thor gazes down at the Midgardian woman, a soft look Loki has never before seen on his face. And he watches, helpless as Thor urges her to stay behind, in the safety of his coat while he promises to acquire her stolen items, the fond look only growing when she challenges his stupidity.

It is only then, in the presence of all the fondness, that Loki realizes that Thor is well and truly lost to him.

Even without Lady Sif to turn Thor against him, Loki will never again bask under Thor’s warmth. Never see that look of fondness direct his way. Not when Thor has already become so enamored with that small thing that he’d risked his now mortal life for her.

He can no longer stand at Thor’s side.

Not when the love for Thor, his _everything_ churns. Twisting and turning in his still screaming heart until it’s only a dark mockery of the once pure feeling. As any lingering warmth in his heart leaches out until there is only burning anger and bitterness so deep that the screaming finally _stops_.

_Because he has finally lost everything._

As it all finally goes blissfully silent when his heart finally crumbles. As it falls apart into pieces too small to catch before they drop into the deep, dark void that takes its place. The very same void that takes all the warmth with it. All the joy and the peace so that even as the screaming of his heart finally stops, there is no reprieve.

_Somewhere in the distance, thunder crashes._

There will never be any reprieve, not when all that is left is anger and a pit so empty that loneliness bleeds from it. Swallowing him whole and plunging him into that same pit until he can’t see. Can’t make out the view before him as it all goes dark and the only thing that keeps him standing is the knowledge that there’s no point in falling to his misery.

He can’t wallow in it now, not when he has so much to fix. So much to do. Whether it is with Thor at his side or not, Loki can’t afford to dally in self-pity now. Not with the impending threat of his own banishment still so close.

So, he holds strong, even when all that is left now is the poison in his thoughts and the pit in his chest. The skies seem to open in tune to his misery as he watches Thor in a desperate bid to reach Mjolnir. Pitting himself against man after man and wiping them all out with the efficiency of the battle harden Prince he is.

And when he watches Thor fall, Mjolnir as lost to him as Asgard, he can’t help the bitter twinge of joy he gets from it. In knowing that Thor still isn’t worthy. That he can’t wield the very hammer Loki had crafted for him. That for all his greatness, his greatest gift is beyond his reach and his return to Asgard just as far.

The smile that reaches his face then is cruel. Smug in that bitter way that has taken over the hole in his chest. So, when Thor’s cry of despair reaches him he can’t help but feel something vindictive crawl out of that hole, swarming his head and mingling with the poison it finds there.

The warmth he feels then has nothing to do with joy.

It takes a lot for him to school his face then. To hide the smug, vindictive smile from his face and lock it away behind that calm, cold mask he has perfected. But he does, so when he faces Thor—when he finally finds himself in the only place he’s wanted to be since this whole mess started—it’s with something like grief on his face.

“Loki!”

Thor’s cry of joy and relief stirs something deep inside him. In that black pit of loneliness that was once his heart. But whatever it is, it will never see the light of day as it's easily pushed back by the bitterness, snuffed out before Loki can ever put a name to it.

“What are you doing here?” Thor asks as Loki comes to stand before him, towering over him in a way Loki never has before. Dark and powerful. Not that Thor even realizes that there is power in Loki's stance, in the way he stands above Thor's seated form. Too overcome at the sight of Loki to even see it.

“I had to see you.”

And it's true. Loki has never need to see Thor more than now. Has never needed to feel Thor’s blue eyes on him, to hear the sound of his voice, the breath in his lungs, and to feel the warmth in his skin. Loki has never needed Thor like has now.

On the day he has finally lost him.

“What’s happened?” Thor asks, dread already on his face even as Loki just continues to stare. Needing to drink in the sight of Thor, to bask in his presence one last time. To feel Thor’s gaze, fond and caring, on him once more before it’s lost to him forever. “Tell me. Is it Jotunheim? Let me explain to Father.”

Because, after this, if Thor will ever look upon him again it will be in loathing. In hatred so fierce, Thor will have his head. Will take the breath from his lungs with his own hands if only as an act of revenge as Loki finally does what every nasty whisper has accused him of.

As he finally steals the throne from Thor.

“Father is dead.”

There’s true despair on Thor’s face now and he relishes in it. Let’s it fill that pit in his chest as the bitterness turns sweet in that cruel way of someone taking joy in another’s suffering. Loki keeps all off that off his face through sheer force of will.

“What?”

“Your banishment,” Loki begins, false regret in his voice as he begins to weave his lie. As he uses his penchant for trickery and lies in his first true act of treason towards Thor. Something he never thought himself capable of before. “Threat of a new war, it was too much for him to bear. You mustn’t blame yourself. I know that you loved him. I tried to tell him so but he wouldn’t listen. It was so cruel to put the hammer within your reach, knowing that you could never lift it. The burden of the throne has fallen to me now.”

Before the pit in his chest and the bitterness in his mind.

“Can I come home?” Thor asks, voice as broken as the look on his face. Loki has a moment then, small, and easily subdued, where he wants to take it all back. As Thor finally breaks, true despair on his face, Loki almost wants to stop his lies.

“The truce with Jotunheim is conditional upon your exile.”

But he’s too far gone now. Too deep into the throws of anger and bitterness to stop his silver tongue as it weaves lie after lie and continues to tear Thor down piece by piece until Thor’s voice is nothing but a husky, pleading whisper.

“Yes, but couldn’t we find a way—”

“And Mother has forbidden your return,” Loki says, the regret in his words sounding fake to his own ears, but Thor is too deep in his despair to notice it. Too overcome to realize that the poison in Loki’s mind has finally won. “This is goodbye brother. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Thor whisper, ever the Golden Prince with a heart equally as golden as he stares up at him through his tears. Loki's long-dead heart gives a twinge at the sight of him, of the Mighty Thor, broken and despaired. "I am sorry. Thank you for coming here.”

“Farewell.”

Loki doesn't stay long enough to hear Thor choke out his own goodbye. Instead, he lets his magic surround him again. He lets it conceal him from the human eyes as he makes his way down their halls, and out to where Mjolnir sits.

It’s sheer curiosity that has him circling around Mjolnir, sizing the hammer up like there's even a slight possibility he'll be able to lift the thing. Still, he can't stop himself. As he watches it rest on its dais, dormant in the way it had only ever been before it was forged in a dying star, he can’t help but reach out.

The handle is as cold and dead as Mjolnir looks when his long fingers wrap around the stunted handle. Truly dormant, Mjolnir’s beat, its magic, is gone, asleep even as it refuses to give when Loki tugs.

He starts off gentle, coaxing even. Though, all too soon, as the hammer refuses to give, Loki finds himself yanking in earnest. Desperate almost as he yanks on the handle with both hands when this quickly turns into yet another failure to add to his name.

Still, he yanks, wanting nothing more than to dislodge the hammer if only to prove that he can. That, for all the poison in his mind and the screaming in his heart, he’s still good. Still worthy of being at Thor’s side. Even if all he will ever do is stare up at all the greatness he will never reach.

_‘You’re not worthy.’_

But he already knew that. Always has. There is no bigger truth in this world than that Loki will _never_ be worthy. Not for Asgard and all its golden beauty. Not for the throne he now sits upon, practically stolen. And not even _this_.

To stand here and hold everything that _is_ Thor. Lightning and thunderstorms and strength and _good._ So much good that it bleeds out from even Thor’s weapon of choice. And the truth of the matter is, well…

Loki has never been and never will be good.

So, he lets the hammer go, thing, pale fingers slipping off the handle as Mjolnir’s magic, awaken only long enough to pulse against his. Awakes only long enough to ward him off with its bitter truths.

If Loki was ever worthy, that time is now long gone.

So far gone that he doesn’t stop to think of who he's trying to save anymore. All thoughts of bringing Thor home have vanished, lost the second he’d seen the fondness in Thor’s eyes for that small Midgardian woman. So he spares no thought for what his next actions mean for Thor’s possible return for exile as he finds himself in Jotunheim.

In the world of his birth.

And that of his father, his _true_ father. The dreaded creature that helped birth him and left him to die in a frozen temple. As abandoned as their very world now seems. Desolate and crumbling as he makes his way across the ice and to the throne of the very father that once left him to die in this frozen wasteland.

“Kill him.”

The words don’t surprise him. Not after his last visit here had ended in death and war. And the destruction of the remains of what was—probably—a once beautiful city. He truly wouldn’t know if there was once beauty in this frozen world. Especially not since he was spirited away by the very man who saw to its destruction. 

“After all I’ve done for you?”

There’s honest disbelief in his voice as he stands before Laufey— _his father,_ who sits upon his frozen throne made of ice and despair. The one and only throne Loki has any right to inherit, he realizes. The bitter irony only fuels the poison in his thoughts, adding to the bitterness already in the hole where his heart used to be.

“So you’re the one who showed us the way into Asgard,” Laufey says, surprise carefully sealed away so that his words sound more bored than considering. But no one moves against him, so Loki counts it as a win.

“That was just a bit of fun, really," he says because it was. For all intents and purposes, it was nothing more than yet another one of his pranks. That it went horribly and started a war is another story entirely. “To ruin my brother’s big day. And to protect the realm from his idiotic rule for a while longer.”

That last bit had only come to him afterward. After Thor had shown his arrogance and childishness by damning their peaceful realm to war and Odin had seen him banished from Asgard for it.

“I will hear you.”

Laufey's voice has an edge of eagerness to it now, curious to see what Asgard's newest King has planned for her. What horrors he is planning for the world he now leads because it could only be something horrible.

There is no other reason for him to be here, within the enemy's den, and angry. Angry enough to consort with the archenemy of his supposed father. That his real father is the one that sits upon the frozen throne is another matter entirely.

Even more so as Loki realizes that Laufey _doesn’t_ know. Doesn't see that his stolen child is standing in front of him, masquerading around as the second son of Odin and the King of Asgard. Doesn't realize that his child stands before him hurting and bleeding and planning the downfall of the very man that ripped him away from what should have been his home. 

Who had taken him from this frozen city as another stolen relic to be locked away. 

And as Loki watches Laufey, sitting upon his throne, still as if he is as frozen as the world around him, he thinks. As he watches as a distant tower crumbles, silent in the frozen wasteland, he can't help the thoughts that rush through his mind. As he stands before his father, who hasn't realized the broken creature before him is his child, he wonders.

_Maybe it was for the best._

Odin may have spirited him in the aftermath of a devastating war, but Laufey—his _father_ , his _blood_ —has no idea the very creature that is offering him his greatest desire to see Odin dead and his Realm restored, is his _son._

_His prince._

The eagerness in his eyes has nothing to do with his son's return. He cares not for that lone babe that was taken from their temples and carried realms away. Has never bothered to search for him, to find if that babe still lives or if he has met his end at the hands of his captors. He has no idea even that that babe is still alive and now stands before him, offering him all he’s ever wanted on a silver platter.

And that just won’t do.

Loki has been shoved aside and forgotten long enough.

Odin may have stolen him but Laufey had abandoned him first. Left him to die in a frozen temple, alone and forgotten, like he _wasn’t_ the prince of Jotunheim and the future heir to that frozen throne Laufey sits on now. 

Like Laufey doesn’t have as much to do with the poison in his mind and the bitterness that fills the hole where his heart used to be. Had Laufey never left him to die, he never would have lived the life of the Second Prince, shunned, and scorned by all of Asgard.

“I will conceal you,” Loki says, moving to circle the room with slow, measured steps as a new idea form. As a plan finally settles in his mind, strong and concrete enough that he decides to follow through with it. “And a handful of your soldiers, lead you into Odin’s chambers, and you can slay him where he lies.”

“Why not kill him yourself?”

He can’t help the snort that leaves him at Laufey’s words. Because of course, his father is slow-witted. Dumb as any other frost giant and just as dense. Never mind that Laufey's blood is that of his own.

Loki may be a frost giant in blood, but he is nowhere near as slow.

“I suspect that the Asgardians would not take kindly to a king who had murdered his predecessor,” Loki tells him, not bothering to keep the patronizing tone from his voice as he does. “Once Odin is dead, I will return the Casket to you and you can return Jotunheim to all its…glory.”

“I…accept.”

He doesn’t stick around long after Laufey's agreement. He only lingers enough to tell them when to expect him to open the Bifrost for them before he departs. He also doesn’t bother to reveal his true identity to his father.

Instead, he leaves the frozen, broken palace as quietly as he arrives and so deeply shrouded in magic that Heimdall sees none of it. At least not until he lets the magic slip away and reveals himself to the golden eyes of the All-Seer so that he can be transported back home through the Bifrost.

“What troubles you, Gatekeeper?”

He can’t help the taught that leaves his lips as the Bifrost gently ushers him into the Golden Dome and in front of Heimdall’s golden eyes. The same golden eyes that see all, even that that is realms away.

“I turned my gaze upon you in Jotunheim and I could neither hear nor see you,” Heimdall explains and Loki had expected no less of him. Especially now that Heimdall's suspicions have turned his way. “You were shrouded from me like the Frost Giants that entered this realm.”

“Perhaps your senses have weakened after your many years of service,” he taunts, confident enough in his power as King to do so. He can’t keep the challenge from his gaze any more than he can keep it from his words.

“Perhaps someone has found a way to hid that which he does not wish me to see.”

“You have great power, Heimdall,” Loki admits as he begins to circle around Heimdall as he stands on his dais. There’s confidence in his stance as Loki looks up at him, neither cowing under the challenge in Loki’s words nor raising to it. “Did Odin ever fear you?”

“No.”

And it’s true. For all that Heimdall can see all, hear all, never once has Odin’s gazed been cast his way in suspicion.

“And why is that?” Loki asks, even though he already knows, has always known. The greatest power Heimdall has is not his ability to hear and see all that happens within the nine realms, but the depths of which his loyalty runs.

“Because he is my king, and I am sworn to obey him.”

“He was your king,” Loki reminds him, stopping his circling to stand before Heimdall even though he knows Heimdall’s loyalty will never rest in him. If only because it is yet another thing Loki will never be worthy of. “And you’re sown to obey me now. Yes?”

“Yes.”

The words are said with the finality of despair. Like an axe falling on the unsuspecting neck of its victim. Like Loki has sealed his fate at the treacherous Second Born Prince who can only gain the loyalty of others through demands.

“Then you will open the Bifrost to no one until I have repaired the damage my brother has done.”

If Heimdall has any protests about the order, Loki doesn’t give him the chance to air them as he storms away. He rushes out of the Heimdall’s Observatory then, cape flowing behind him with all the grace and power of the King he _isn’t._

That he can’t be when Asgard isn’t even his to rule. When Odin _isn’t_ his father and Thor _isn’t_ his brother and all Loki is, is a Jotun Prince who was stolen from his home and has somehow managed to steal the throne to Asgard in return.

But never a King.

No.

Loki can never be a king. Not when his own father, the King of Jotunheim, had abandoned him and left him to die long before Odin had even found him. Not when his own people, his own realm, his own _father_ had never wanted him to begin with.

So, yeah, as nothing more than an unwanted Prince he can’t be a King. Not here in beautiful, golden Asgard, or in desolate, frozen Jotunheim. But that doesn’t mean that he _can’t_ burn it all down to the floor.

It doesn’t mean he _can’t_ tear Jotunheim to shreds, can’t rip Asgard apart and laugh over her destruction. Over her ruins that will no doubt still be as beautiful and golden as she is now. That will continue to shine even as he brings her to ruin.

_No._

The word is all but a whisper in his head, a desperate plead in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Thor’s. One that continues to beg him, to push away thoughts of setting Asgard aflame in one last fit of childish revenge.

Because he _can’t._

He owes Jotunheim nothing, not when the realm, its people, and his father have tossed him away already. Left him for dead before he could have even known their faces, much less the name of the world he was born from.

But Asgard?

Sweet, beautiful, golden Asgard with its cloudy skies and warm magic has given him _everything._

Asgard has given him Thor and for all that he has lost him now due to his own transgressions, she is not to blame for it. No, Asgard has given him Thor, as sweet and as golden she is, and Loki, bitter, broken Loki owes her _everything_ for it.

So he can’t break her, can’t tear her to shreds, not when Thor loves her as much as he does.

Not when, to Thor, Asgard _is_ everything.

Or at least she was before. Before Thor found himself stranded on an alien planet in the arms of a Midgardian Woman. But that is through no fault of Asgard herself, not when Loki was the one who pushed him there.

Not when he was the one who saw Thor faltering on the seat of all his great and gave him the last nudge into catastrophe. When he was the one who tipped him over into banishment and into the arms of a Midgardian.

Asgard had given him Thor, her golden warrior filled with nothing but strength and warmth and _good_ , and his own poison had seen him banished. So the very least he can do, the last _good_ he can ever do is to keep her safe. Keep her golden and beautiful and _alive_ until Thor can come back to her rescue.

Loki owes Asgard everything.

But Jotunheim, desolate, frozen Jotunheim he owes _nothing._ Not his loyalty as her Prince he once was. Not his help to rebuild the ruins she’s been turned into. And not his tears for all the destruction he will wreak on it.

Asgard gave him _Thor,_ but Jotunheim gave him the poison in his mind and the bitterness in his heart.

And he will see her ruined for it.

He’s passing by an open corridor, one that opens up over Asgard, allowing him to gaze at all her golden beauty when he sees it. On his way to do _something,_ anything to quell the poisonous thoughts in his head when he catches sight of the first act of treason against his rule as King.

When he watches the bridge light up with a bitten-off curse on his lips.

Time is up. The day of reckoning is here, and Loki has no more time to think, to plan, to beg and scream and cry even if he wanted to. His judgment is coming in the hands of everything he’s ever wanted, ever needed and Loki suddenly realizes he _can’t._

_He can't do this._

Not like this. Not now. Not on the verge of everything he can never have and in the face of all that he has lost. He can’t, he really, really can’t and finally, _finally,_ something bitter and angry and _venomous_ slithers out of the pit in his chest and whisper, _‘you don’t have to.’_

Loki has already lost everything.

Thor will never be his any more than Asgard will. Will never again look down at him with fondness in his eyes and warmth in his smiles. Will never hold him close and chase away the dark whispers said behind his back. Will never look at him and call him brother because Loki _isn’t._

Because Loki is nothing more than the Jotun Prince that stole his throne. He is someone who deserves to have Thor’s warmth shine down him no more than he deserves to stand at his side. Because Loki has already lost him to the poison in his mind and the bitterness in his heart.

 _‘So why keep suffering,’_ the venom whispers, cold and bitter and hurting as it joins the poison in his mind. _‘Why wait here for the hammer to strike when you’ve lost him already?’_

And it’s right in a way so cruel it drags a gasp from Loki as if the pain he feels is physical. As if his cold dead heart can keep ripping apart, can start screaming again. As if there’s anything left of it _to_ scream.

“Why should I have to give up the throne?” he hears himself mutter, voice low and bitter and as venomous as the thoughts in his head. “I’ve already lost everything, so why shouldn’t I keep it to myself?”

No one answers his questions. There’s no _to_ answer his questions, alone, storming down the halls as he is. At least no one but his own treacherous thoughts that tell him he’s right. That he shouldn’t have to give up anymore, not when he’s already lost so much.

That’s how he finds himself in front of the Destroyer. With venom in his mind, bitterness in his chest, and loss so deep it almost drags something that feels an awful lot like despair from that deep dark pit in his chest.

“Ensure my brother does not return,” he tells the Destroyer as it appears before him, big and menacing and completely at his will. The only thing loyal enough in this realm to obey his every command as he sets it on Thor. “Destroy everything.”

On Thor who _is_ his everything.

He pauses only long enough to steal the Casket of Winters away before he turns to send the Destroyer off, shuffling it to the Midgard, unsee even by the eyes of Heimdall. The same way he did the Frost Giants on Thor’s big day.

In a flash of lights, violent winds, and sorcery, he sends the Destroy to Midgard with orders to raze it all to the ground even as something in him gives a violent tug at the act. But, whatever it is, he squashes it down instantly, brutally, so that it will never rise again as he goes to the Bifrost to face Heimdall and his treachery.

“Tell me, Loki, how did you get the Jotuns into Asgard?”

Heimdall is curious. Where he should be cowering under his King for his betrayal, Heimdall stands strong. Unbothered even as Loki stands before him as the ruler of Asgard and his King.

"You think the Bifrost is the only way in and out of this Realm?” Loki asks, a taunt in his voice as he stares Heimdall down. “There are secret paths between the worlds to which even you, with all your gifts, are blind.”

Heimdall doesn’t flinch at the words, doesn’t even rise to the taunt as he stands perfectly still, like a statue. All golden and power, sword clenched in his hands as he waits for Loki to finished what he has to say.

“But I have need of them no longer, now that I am king,” Loki tells him, dismissal in his words. “And I say, for your act of treason, you are relieved of your duties as Gatekeeper, and no longer citizen of Asgard."

“Then I need no longer obey you.”

Everything happens quickly then and yet not fast enough. No sooner has Heimdall swung his sword than Loki has unveiled the Casket of Winters. Yet it almost doesn’t seem fast enough. Even as the Casket opens, freezing Heimdall in Winter’s cold embrace and swallowing Loki up in its bitter blue, the sword gets close.

Almost too close.

It all but touches the skin of his neck before Heimdall is finally stopped, frozen and encased in ice, sword just inches from Loki’s neck. But it does stop him just as surely as it turns Loki’s skin blue and rough and cold in a way he is quickly learning to hate.

And just as quickly learning to shake off.

As soon as he seals the Casket away with his Magic again, the blue is gone. Disappearing with the casket. Leaching back off his skin so it’s once again its pale ivory and smooth.

He doesn’t linger then.

Once the Destroyer is on its way to Midgard and Heimdall is well and truly taken care of, he makes his way back to the palace. There’s a slight rush in his footsteps as he does, eager to get to _his_ Throne Room and watch as the Destroy lays waste to everything.

As it burns and explodes as much of Thor’s precious world as it can, thrilling almost as he sees Lady Sif and the Warriors Three knocked about, failing to do nothing more than distract the Destroyer from its one true target.

And then, suddenly, _Thor_ is there.

Bold and strong and unwavering in the face of what will be his death. Even as the Destroyer bears down at him, showing Loki Thor’s last moments before his death. Showing him bold and fearless even in the face of all of Loki’s anger.

Showing him _Thor._

Strong and fierce and _golden_.

“Brother.”

The call for him is soft. Cautious almost as Thor’s know he’s watching. _Knows_ he’s sitting there, peering at him through the eyes of the very Destroyer he has sent for his blood. Because of course, he would be, as he always has, staring up at Thor even now.

In the moment of his defeat.

“Whatever I have done to wrong you, whatever I have done to lead you to do this, I am truly sorry,” Thor tells him, voice still soft when he should yell. When he should scream and rant and rave at Loki’s injustice, but Thor for all his bruteness has never yelled at Loki. Has never screamed vile words at him or accused him of treacherous acts. Thor has only ever loved him with that soft and gentle tone, almost as if afraid he’ll spook and run off. Loving and caring even now. 

And look how Loki has repaid him.

“But these people are innocent,” Thor continues, words burning now as passion takes the soft edge away. But only by a little. Only enough to make his point as he begs for Loki’s mercy. “Taking their lives will gain you nothing.”

Loki watches all this, something screaming in the back of his mind even as he does. Yelling at him to stop, to end it here and now. To stop before he loses Thor for good, but then Thor, sweet golden Thor, offers him the only thing he can’t resist.

“So take mine and end this.”

He offers himself and Loki, Loki will take him in anyone he can, in the _only_ way he can, so he accepts. Yet the sight of Thor sprawled on the floor, motionless and gone, does nothing to ease him. It doesn’t quiet the screaming, doesn’t stop the poison or the bitterness.

No, that only grows, especially when that small Midgardian woman throws herself shamelessly over Thor’s body, crying and begging him to wake but he won’t. It’s then that something like victory hits Loki, engulfing him, because, in death, Thor can finally be his.

Has offered himself to Loki well and truly of his own will.

After all these years, Thor is finally his.

It shouldn’t surprise him that it doesn’t last. That only seconds after Thor has gone down, he raises again in a show of magic and thunder so bright, Loki can’t see him till he’s once again standing, dressed in shining armor, a cape of brilliant red, and as golden as the day he was tossed out of their world.

That he loses Thor so quickly is funny in a way that seems ironic.

But he doesn’t laugh, nor does he linger. Seconds after Thor has brought the Destroyer down, he’s gone. Rushing from the throne room and down to the Bifrost to finish up the last of his plans. Thor may be alive and powerful once again, but he can’t come home without the Bifrost and Heimdall’s is still as he left him.

Encased in ice.

“Welcome to Asgard.”

Loki’s welcome is received with nothing more than a smirk on his Father’s lips. One he has trouble meeting with his own, instead of the snarl he can feel trying to curl his lips into something as cruel as the poison in his mind.

With no other words, Loki leads Laufey away from the Bifrost and deep into the palace. Then, once he reaches the doors of Odin’s healing room, he lets Laufey go alone, ushering him forward into the room as he waits by the door. He has precious seconds now before it will all spiral, he _knows_ it will.

As it always does.

"It's said that you can still hear and see what transpires around you,” Laufey says, words only just loud enough for Loki to hear. “ I hope it's true so that you may know your death came at the hand of Laufey."

Now.

"And your death came by the son of Odin.”

It’s dramatic in a way Loki has always had a flare for, maybe even a tad be too much, but the words feel good in a way he doesn’t expect when he says them. That it’s all just a ploy to get himself some well-deserved revenge isn’t lost on him, but the words still feel even better when Laufey looks up at him with wide, red eyes.

“Loki,” his mother calls, raising from where Laufey has tossed her as his body disintegrates in a pile of ash. Loki falls into her waiting arms easily then, all but melting into them in something like relief that his plan has come this far without falling apart yet. “You saved him.”

“I swear to you, Mother,” he tells her, winding himself for words that will make his promise believable. That won’t sound fake on his tongue now that his plan is well and truly in motion. “That they will pay for what they’ve done today.”

Jotunheim will fall by the hands of her own prince.

“Loki!”

Thor’s voice all but crawls up his spine, sliding over his cold skin in a way that has no right to make heat pool. But it does, as it always has, settling like a thick weight in his stomach as he turns as the last of his plans finally comes crashing down around him.

“Thor!” his mother cries, slipping from his arms easily. He lets her go, watching as she throws herself into Thor’s arms. Arms that wrap tightly around her, protectively, as if Loki would ever hurt the only woman to shower him in warmth and love. “I knew you’d return to us.”

As if he is well and truly a monster.

“Why don’t you tell her?” Thor asks, voice a low gravely growl as he begins to circle, like a lion stalking his prey. He stalks into the room with heavy, pounding footsteps, Mjolnir grasped tightly in his hand, ready and waiting to be used. “How you sent the Destroyer to kill our friends, to kill me?”

“What?”

His Mother’s voice is a quiet gasp, one he almost doesn’t hear as he watches Thor circle him, eager almost to strike down the traitor in their house. But not even for Thor, will Loki make his death easy. Thor may have willingly offered his life for the lives of the pathetic Midgardians, but Loki has no such qualms.

“Why, it must have been enforcing Father’s last command,” Loki smirks at him, the lie flowing off his tongue like water. Easily and so sure that only those who know better would have trouble not swallowing up the lies he feeds them.

“You’re a talented lair, brother,” Thor snarls at him, watching him from the other side of Odin’s bed where his circling has left him. There’s still no yell in his voice but the anger is there, hot and burning in the way he throws his next words at Loki. “Always have been.”

“It’s good to have you back,” Loki tells him even as the words hit low. Very low, in that corner he has never let himself look too close at. The one where everything everyone has ever said of him is true. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to Destroy Jotunheim.”

The very corner where he is nothing more than a liar and a thief.

He lays Thor low in one hit. One powerful enough to toss him through the wall and out of the room and buy him enough time to make it to the Bifrost and set her on Jotunheim. By the time Thor makes it to him, it’s too late.

The Bifrost is already ripping across Jotunheim, laying her to waste. 

"You can't stop it,” Loki can’t keep himself from taunting, words mocking even in their bitterness. When he turns, Thor is watching him with wide eyes, disbelieving that Loki’s anger can be so vast, can lead to something so tragic as the end of a world. “The Bifrost will build until it rips Jotunheim apart."

Not that it stops Thor from trying. Even with Loki’s words, he races across the observatory, Mjolnir raised and ready to strike down on the Bifrost. Loki stops him, quick and embarrassingly easily, zaps him away from the Bifrost before he can bring Mjolnir down on her. 

“Why have you done this?”

Thor’s voice is strong, confused, and only the slightest bit shaky when he stands again, Mjolnir still clenched tightly in his fist. He stumbles back, still dazed by the blow but ready as ever to surge forward even as he hangs back, his grip on Mjolnir tightening all the more.

For all the danger he poses, all the strength in the muscles tensed and waiting to strike, Loki doesn’t fear him. Not here, not now, when Loki wields all the power of a king over him. When he holds Gungnir in his own hands, the mark of Asgard’s King.

For all that she means nothing to him. 

“To prove to Father that I am the Worthy Son,” he tells Thor, the lies slick on his tongue but no less believable as he lays them at Thor’s feet. “When he wakes, I will have saved his life. I will have destroyed that race of monsters. And I will be true heir to the throne.”

“You can’t kill an entire race,” Thor tells him, _begs_ him, as he watches Loki, something like true despair on his face. And Loki can’t keep the smirk off his face at the sight of it, at any sight of weakness really, on the face of the Golden Prince of Asgard.

“Why not?” he asks confused, but then it clicks, becomes so clearly he can’t keep the dark chuckle from his lips when he realizes just how absurd the whole situation has become. “And what is this newfound love for the Frost Giants? You could have killed them all with your bare hands.”

And it’s true. Just a few days ago they had been standing on different ends, the situation reversed with Loki trying to stop _him._ To keep Thor from laying waste to all of Jotunheim.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

To have Thor before him, sweet, arrogant, vicious Thor begging him for the life of creatures that would sooner see him dead and Asgard in Ruins, is equal parts pleasing and disgusting. The begging he can appreciate, can savor in whatever form Thor may find it in himself to beg just because it is so rare.

_Thor never begs._

But the pleading for the Jotuns, that he can do without. Can go his whole life without ever seeing that plead come from Thor’s lips because it sounds oddly too much like Thor is begging _for_ him. For the Jotun sealed away beneath his skin, screaming to get out and just _ruin_ everything around it.

And that just won’t do

“I’ve changed.”

“So have I,” Loki all but whispers having stalked forward enough that he’s just within Thor’s reach. Just barely out of reach of those fingers but more than close enough to send the end of Gungnir crashing into Thor’s cheek. “Now fight me.”

But Thor doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch from the onslaught of Loki’s rage, doesn’t move to defend himself even when Loki sends him crashing across the room, skittering across the floor and landing in a heap. 

“I never wanted the throne,” Loki all but screams, the first truth to fall from his lips since this whole thing started and something _burns_ at the admission. At the honest _truth_ of it as he stalks to where Thor is struggling to his feet. “I only ever wanted to be your equal.”

And it’s true, honest in a way he hasn’t been in years as he watches Thor pull himself to his feet, swaying despite being full of strength that has brought down worlds. That has won wars. That has held him in warm arms on nights too cold to even _breathe._

“I will not fight you, brother!”

“I’m not your brother,” Loki whispers, the words a shock in the quiet left by Thor’s yell. They wretch apart more than the sudden calm around them, throwing it all back into chaos as Loki lets another bitter, honest truth fall from his lips like poison. “I never was.”

“Loki,” Thor begs, voice shaking and just this side of breaking as he begs him to _stop._ To halt the biting, searing truths that finally fall from his lips. “This is madness.”

To think, that after all the lies and deceit, the truth would hurt more.

“Is it madness?” Loki asks, voice still no more than a whisper as something hot, angry worms its way out, and up. Up the lump in his throat and pools in his eyes, biting and harsh. “Is it? Is it!? Come one. What happened to you on earth that turned you so soft? Don’t tell me it was that woman.

“Oh?” he breathes out, the words no more than a gasp as the anger splashes out, dripping down over his cheeks and down in twin trials of burning misery as it all just continues to make sense in this twisted new reality where he has lost it all. “It was. Well, maybe, when we’re finished here, I’ll pay her a visit myself!”

Where he has lost Thor.

It all goes to hell then. Nothing makes sense. It’s all a blur of limbs and pain as they crash into each other, blurring the world in red shades of anger and pain as they fight, wrestling across the ground more than once in a twisted mess of limbs.

Loki may be a mage, more prone to books than the violence of battle but he has trained, has fought, has seen battle enough that he is more than a challenge. He is his own battle to be fought and as he meets Thor rage with his own, he knows that even Thor with all his skills and strength and muscles will have a hard time in bringing him down.

Loki is as much as a prince as Thor is, has seen his fair share of fights and battles, he will not be an easy target. Not with Gungnir in his hands and magic at his beck and call and, yet, Thor still brings him down in a show of lighting and pain. 

But even then, pinned under the unmovable weight of Mjolnir, Loki can’t help but gloat. Can’t keep the taunts from making their way past his lips as he watches Thor approach the Bifrost like he can stop it. 

“Look at you, the mighty Thor,” he gasps out, Mjolnir just this side of crushing the air from his lungs as he watches Thor skid forward, dragged by the power of the Bifrost and what Loki has done to corrupt it. “With all your strength, and what good does it do you now, huh?”

Thor doesn’t bother to reply, doesn’t even turn back to look at him as he watches the Bifrost spark and shake, threatening to take them down with it as the power builds, cracking sharply in a way that cannot be good.

“Do you hear me, brother?” Loki all but crackles, unwilling to cede defeat even as Mjolnir continues to pin him. “There’s nothing you can do!”

Or at least there shouldn’t be. Not without sacrificing more than Loki would have ever thought Thor capable of, but suddenly he is. Before he can really make sense of what is happening the weight of Mjolnir is gone, allowing him to drag in deep breathes of air as he rises to watch Thor raise Mjolnir.

It’s first crash against the bridge is deafening.

“What are you doing?” Loki asks, crawling to his feet as Thor ignores him, as he continues to bring Mjolnir down on the bridge with thundering cracks that all but rattle his bones. “If you destroy the bridge, you’ll never see her again!”

“Forgive me, Jane.”

Thor’s words are a whisper, but Loki hears them as he surges forwards Gungnir tight in his hands as he leaps. But he is too late. The bridge cracks long before he ever reaches Thor.

It is all a wash of light then, blinding as it swallows them and everything crumbles, falling. Taking the observatory with it and tossing them, tumbling over the edge and down to the deep abyss below.

Except they never make it far. Their descent stopped so that Loki dangles by his grip onGungnir and Thor’s grip on it, strong and sure. But it’s not Thor that keeps them from falling over the edge of the bridge.

No, it’s Odin.

Odin, who grips Thor’s leg, holding them both as if they weigh nothing as they dangle over the edge of the broken bridge, the Bifrost tumbling down, down, down below them. Crashing so far below they never have a hope of watching it land.

“I could have done it, Father!”

He knows he’s begging. Knows he sounds like nothing more than the child who has never met his father’s expectations. Who has spent his whole life staring up, reaching for everything he can never be, but he can’t keep the pleading from his voice.

“I could have don’t it,” he begs, pleading for something he can’t name, because he’s never had it, will never have it no matter how far he reaches, how much he longs for it. “For you. For all of us!”

“No, Loki.”

And he never will have it. Will never stop staring up at everything he will never have and all he will never be because, it’s not for him.

It will never be.

He is nothing more than a Prince of a world that never wanted him.

“Loki, _no_.”

The darkness that swallows him then is almost a relief.

A sweet mercy in the face of everything he can never have.

_“No.”_

Because he is nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> What do you guys think?
> 
> Considering it took me a year to write, (it was never really my top priority and was more of a backburner fic I worked on when I was bored of all my other fics) I'm not sure when I'll update it so I'm gonna set it as finished for now. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
